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'New Way of Stealing Cars': Hacking Them With A Laptop (marketwatch.com)
retroworks writes: The Wall Street Journal (Warning: source may be paywalled), CBS and Marketwatch all lead the morning with stories about the newest method of stealing (late model) cars. No need for hacking off the ignition switch and touching the wires to create a spark (controversial during broadcasts in 1970s television crime criticized for "teaching people to steal cars"). Thieves now use the laptop to access the automobile's computer system, and voila. "Police and car insurers say thieves are using laptop computers to hack into late-model cars' electronic ignitions to steal the vehicles, raising alarms about the auto industry's greater use of computer controls. The discovery follows a recent incident in Houston in which a pair of car thieves were caught on camera using a laptop to start a 2010 Jeep Wrangler and steal it from the owner's driveway. Police say the same method may have been used in the theft of four other late-model Wranglers and Cherokees in the city. None of the vehicles have been recovered." The article concludes with the example filmed of a break-in in Houston. The thief, says the NICB's Mr. Morris, likely used the laptop to manipulate the car's computer to recognize a signal sent from an electronic key the thief then used to turn on the ignition. The computer reads the signal and allows the key to turn. "We have no idea how many cars have been broken into using this method," Mr. Morris said. "We think it is minuscule in the overall car thefts but it does show these hackers will do anything to stay one step ahead." No details on modifying the program to run on Android or iPhone -- there's not yet "an app for that."
Mr. Morris said. "We think it is minuscule in the overall car thefts but it does show these hackers will do anything to stay one step ahead."
Well Mr. Morris... it's not like the auto industry is even making a serious attempt at vehicle security to begin with. It really is not hard to stay "one step ahead"... in fact the industry is really just refusing to step ahead themselves. A toddler will get farther down the road as long as they refuse to move.
You can see in the video that the thief triggers the vehicle alarm, and then proceeds to work on it as the alarm is going off. That means that even old-school hot wiring would have worked. Once the thief has access to the car and plenty of time, there's nothing to prevent him from taking the car.
Will TPP restrict my ability as a vehicle owner to research my car's security systems and possibly prevent someone from wifi-jacking my car?
As I understand it, TPP makes it illegal for me to futz with the electronic ignition system.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
How long before a car can be remotely hacked and told to self-drive itself to the chop-shop? By someone in another country?
Yeah, I miss the old days when cars used to break down completely before they reached 80,000 miles, and when they poured out lead-contaminated exhaust and enough sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide to create acid rain, and when they got 8 miles per gallon, and when they would fly off the corners in improperly banked turns, and fly into a spin when braking on a wet road, and would impale drivers on steering wheel shafts in head-on collisions.
Ah, you must be talking about American cars.
By comparison, assault rifles account for a "minuscule" fraction of lives taken every year
That's the difference between property and the value of a human life. Even a "miniscule" number of lives being taken in violence is considered not acceptable. The number has to be gotten down to Zero, that's their goal, and that is what the public demands.
Until their demands are met, they are going to ask for more countermeasures and stricter and stricter laws in (possibly vain) effort to get that number down to zeor.
In the meantime, tobacco companies are legally allowed to sell a product that kills hundreds of thousands of humans every year.
Yeah, tell me again how "they" give a shit about saving lives...
In the USA, at least, "assault rifles" (selective fire weapons like the M4) aren't even a blip.
Now, if you're talking "assault weapons" (scary looking semi-automatic rifles), then it's true that they account for a "miniscule" fraction of lives taken every year. And it's also true that stupid lawmakers stage sit-ins, etc....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Since assault rifles are an actual classification of weapon with a select fire switch and automatic capability and are highly regulated to the point it would cost over $10000 to purchase one (as long as you can get an FFL) and assault weapon is a media created term describing a hunting rifle that is shaped like a military weapon, then I would say that the civilian deaths by assault rifles in America are statistically close to 0.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
They're becoming increasingly rare, and therefore expensive, but you can still get all of those features in used cars. The lead additive for gas is very hard to find in first world countries, but there are still places you can get that to complete the primitive automobile experience.
Don't forget, older cars are also easier to fix after a crash because they don't have those stupid crumple zones that newer cars have. Instead of trying to minimize impact to the owner, who is obviously the most expendable part of an old car during a crash, older cars maximize their own well being, knowing that there will always be a new owner. Older cars have the strongest anti-hacker technology available and many are immune to the effects of an EMP.
However, don't forget that modern cars have some benefits also. Older cars rarely have appropriate surfaces to affix your iPad so all of your music, movies and games are right in front of you during your boring commute. While the obvious solution of attaching them to the windshield with velcro is simple, most older cars have non-vertical windshields making it harder to reach controls at the bottom of the screen.
Many high end newer cars are susceptible to hacking, in the near future making it possible to steal and deliver the car to a chop shop or international shipper all from the comfort of mom's basement. Compare that with the intrinsic security of the '74 Ford Pinto - entirely immune to theft, even if left in the worst part of town with the doors unlocked and keys in the ignition.
This tangent brought to you by the Coalition for Reductio Ad Absurdum.
Once you save that one, is it really a suicide bombing anymore?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Yeah they're stealing all these Jeeps, but jokes on them when they think they're in park and get run over by the car they just stole.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
That means if you try to steal the car, you will need to tear out the ECU and replace it with a completely brand new factory fresh one, or a used one that comes with the original keys. Rather more complicated and quite expensive.
This implies that losing your existing keys would also be complicated and quite expensive to recover from as well. If that's the case, I would actively avoid such a system. I've never had my car stolen, but I've had to replace keys a few times in my life.
Go fuck yourself. Making it possible for the owner of the vehicle to maintain and/or modify it himself is never a mistake, and indeed should be made mandatory!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Wow, I didn't know it was only American cars that had tires with poor wet traction, polluted the air, got poor gas mileage, and had no collapsing steering columns or seat belts. Please tell me more about this magical land where cars could be imported into the USA without major modifications despite their lack of safety features or pollution controls. I'd also like to see this land where the tires had 21st century rubber compounds, radial steel belts, low profiles, and advanced water siping in 1970.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
At first, there was CAN bus. Those that know it know well that this bus know that "security" was not even an afterthought in its design. It came into existence when "board computers" were something that was carefully hidden from the car's user. Chips that controlled injection, traction, braking behaviour that needed no input from the driver. And of course security was a non-issue back then. Because, hey, anyone who could get access to those areas, hidden deeply within the car's heart and soul, could much easier fuck it up or steal it. Seriously, getting access to those early "board computer" parts meant you literally ripped the whole car apart just to gain a GLIMPSE at it.
Time went on and that "board computer" stuff got more and more pervasive. First with displays that were disconnected from the physical things they displayed, with speedometers that didn't just passively count revolutions on a wheel but a LCD that got the speed information from various sensors, same for the RPM gauge of your engine and various other tidbits, and it didn't take long until buttons on your steering wheel were added that let you control radio, air condition and mirrors.
Still not a security issue, because so far you could not affect the car from the outside. You still had to gain access to the inside of the car first before you could mess with it electronically.
Now, though, security IS an issue because the car accepts input from the outside. And that will become an even greater headache than we know now. The buses are in most implementations not separated between "mission critical" and "user leisure", or if, at a logical level only. Meaning that yes, that bus that takes your steering-wheel-button input and even handles your bluetooth is physically the same that deals with your ABS, your injection and your traction control.
I guess I'm not the only one who thinks that this MIGHT become an issue, given time. Especially considering that security that can't be tested in a crash test has not been any kind of issue with car manufacturers so far, not at all.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Have gnu, will travel.
Ah yes, don't let facts get in the way of your empty argument composed entirely of hand-waving.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
legally allowed to sell a product that kills hundreds of thousands of humans every year.
They'll generally blame lack of healthcare and limitations of medicine for those early deaths.
The reaction is not "Ban Tobacco"; But: Pass Obamacare, which prohibits insurance companies from raising your rates because you are a smoker (Beyond a specified level), to reduce Health insurance costs for smokers (And lay make all the 20-year-old non-smokers take equal responsibility for your extra healthcare costs from smoking).
There's no proof that tobacco resulted in deaths of thousands. Many of those are not untimely early demise. It's quite different with mass shooting deaths, where the dead often include young people. Nobody died of Tobacco. People died of health conditions which Tobacco might have had a role in. Also, this is viewed as 'free choice' by those who died; We have a culture that is currently in generally permissive of self-destructive behaviors, such as smoking, alcohol, and casual drug usage.
While I can understand your last statement here regarding our culture, the rest of your "no proof" rhetoric makes you sound like you work for a tobacco company. Give me a break. This isn't 1940 anymore. We have definitive proof backed by decades of studies to validate that cigarettes are bad for the human body and DO cause deaths that are directly related to tobacco use. There is nothing that could be deemed "good" for you from smoking, regardless of what tobacco lobbyists are claiming. We are smarter than that today. The fact that cigarettes are by design one of the most addictive products on the planet tends to blind the masses from the facts, to include the fact that secondhand smoke also takes lives from those who were not given 'free choice'.
Also, the Freedom to control your body is prioritized over the risk that you might kill yourself by abusing a product.
Ah, let's not forget about the Freedom to defend yourself against a criminal act that might take your life. Unlike tobacco, there are beneficial reasons firearms are in the hands of millions of Free law-abiding citizens today.
Replacement of heater/AC blower requires removal of about 1/4 of the dashboard, and the ECU, BCM/BCU, and other modules sometimes require total removal of the dashboard and center console. Wtf?
These things don't happen that often and they don't care about owners after the first one very much, and owners after the second one not at all. I've never seen a vehicle where you had to remove the bumper cover to replace a lamp.
I've got an A8 which is a rolling PITA, but it's interesting what is and what isn't easy to work on. The blower motor is trivial to replace as it's done from beneath the hood. I believe the heater cores require dash removal... it's either that or engine removal, I'd have to look it up. You can officially get at almost all of the climate control servos without dash removal, and unofficially get at all of them. But the heater core control valve is in a horrible location and you're supposed to remove the brake servo. If you are crafty, you don't have to do that, but the alternative is not fun either. All of the major hidden modules are trivial to access; the ABS is behind the driver's kick panel, and the PCM, TCM, and CCM are in an "e-Box" under the hood. The stereo comes out easily with fairly typical removal tools, but in order to get out the climate control module which lives right next to it out, you need to take out the floor mats and center console trim panels from both sides, remove the center vent, remove the stereo, and pull the whole center stack out of the dash including all of the big switches.
Anyway, everything continues in this vein... the intake manifold is trivial to remove but the oil cooler is a nightmare. I think the truth is that you're just running into basic limitations of what people expect and what it is reasonable to produce and assemble in the factory. There's only so much space in the car to make convenient maintenance access. On the other hand, some of it really is just bad design. I can get right at the blower motor in my F250, in my 300SD, and in my A8...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"